Many Gaza residents who were interviewed for this report recall Saturday morning, December 27, 2008, as being sunny and tranquil, with clear skies. The lack of clouds was unusual, following a week of stormy weather, when winds ripped tiles off decrepit rooftops in refugee camps and rains left large mud puddles throughout the Strip.

Many felt there would be a lull in the fighting that had begun several weeks earlier. But this hope was shattered at 11:30 in the morning, when missiles and bombs began shrieking through the air. Today, two years later, it seems that understanding the opening act of the Cast Lead operation is key to grasping the operation as a whole, and to a certain extent, the actions of the IDF since that campaign.

The largest reserve of natural gas, over 16 trillion cubic feet, has been discovered off the coast of Israel, and is estimated to be worth more than $95 billion, U.S. company Noble Energy Inc. announced on Wednesday.

They are the real heroes of the Haitian earthquake disaster, the human catastrophe on America's doorstep which Barack Obama pledged a monumental US humanitarian mission to alleviate. Except these heroes are from America's arch-enemy Cuba, whose doctors and nurses have put US efforts to shame.

A medical brigade of 1,200 Cubans is operating all over earthquake-torn and cholera-infected Haiti, as part of Fidel Castro's international medical mission which has won the socialist state many friends, but little international recognition.

Tamir Pardo, the incoming chief of the Mossad intelligence service, will apologize to British officials for the use of forged United Kingdom passports in the assassination last January of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, the British Daily Telegraph reported on Saturday.

The Telegraph report, which cited Mossad sources, also said that Pardo would promise that Israeli agents will never again use fake British documents in overseas operations.

The Nigerian authorities have dropped criminal bribery charges against Halliburton and Dick Cheney, the former vice president, following the oil services giant’s agreement to a $35 million settlement, the company said in statement this week. Nigerian officials said last week that the settlement would amount to $250 million.

Mr. Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. The Nigerian charges, filed in early December, were just the latest fallout from a $180 million bribery scheme that Kellogg Brown & Root, a former Halliburton subsidiary, has admitted carrying out with three other companies in a joint venture to develop a liquid natural gas facility in the Niger Delta.

Bolivia joined Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay by announcing it recognized Palestine as a sovereign state within the 1967 borders, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported Friday.

Bolivian President Evo Morales made the announcement during the South American trade block Mercosur's summit which took place in Brazil. Morales was quoted as saying that Bolivia recognized the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders with Israel.